I'm hoping for Rice, but I think it goes to one of the Vanilla Three: Pawlenty, Portman, or Ryan. Jindal shot himself in the foot with his national disaster of a rebuttal to Obama's State of the Union Address, and I think Rubio has been a non-starter for the Romney campaign since day one simply because of his quasi-Mormon past, but they all have to be "vetted" to keep the NAACP et'al happy.

Like everything else in Romney's campaign to date, look for "safe" to rule the nomination process.

I like your perspective Sno. Personally, I like Pawlenty -but he is too neutral, as you said "vanilla," too milk toast.

Portman - a complete unknown to me. A quiet void. I'm sure solid and very capable. I have never read anything but positive reviews about Portman. He's just "Mr. Brick in the Wall."

Paul Ryan - I like him a lot. But, Ryan is a lightning rod because of his budget. I think he is an easy target for the Obama team's scoundrel, deceitful attack ads. Romney needs to stay away from the easy negative hits.

Instead, Romney needs an unassailable champion. Someone that can attack Obama and his policies aggressively with knowledge, experience, and have impact. You want laser sharp, surgical attacks that draw blood and wound deeply. Someone that has command presence and commands respect from the national press. This is crunch time.

IMHO, there is only one VP candidate that meets those requirements - Condi Rice.

Ddawg wrote:Instead, Romney needs an unassailable champion. Someone that can attack Obama and his policies aggressively with knowledge, experience, and have impact. You want laser sharp, surgical attacks that draw blood and wound deeply. Someone that has command presence and commands respect from the national press. This is crunch time.

IMHO, there is only one VP candidate that meets those requirements - Condi Rice.

The reason I don't think Rice gets the nomination is this: she's never run for an elected office before, and this is a pretty big stage for learning on the fly. We've seen people with campaign experience flub it big time (Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle) and drag down the entire ticket. As compelling a choice as Rice is, I don't see the Romney "safety-first" campaign taking on that risk.

Ddawg wrote:Instead, Romney needs an unassailable champion. Someone that can attack Obama and his policies aggressively with knowledge, experience, and have impact. You want laser sharp, surgical attacks that draw blood and wound deeply. Someone that has command presence and commands respect from the national press. This is crunch time.

IMHO, there is only one VP candidate that meets those requirements - Condi Rice.

The reason I don't think Rice gets the nomination is this: she's never run for an elected office before, and this is a pretty big stage for learning on the fly. We've seen people with campaign experience flub it big time (Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle) and drag down the entire ticket. As compelling a choice as Rice is, I don't see the Romney "safety-first" campaign taking on that risk.

Damn-it Sno, you piss me off. You're probably right. We probably end up with a vanilla VP or Marco Rubio. Rubio is not a bad choice though. I like him. He handles himself well, and he addresses the Hispanic minority group - perhaps quiets their fears. He's my #2.

It will be Portman. He can deliver Ohio. Rice brings foreign policy cachet and intelligence but she is not conservative enough for the base. Rubio has a Mormon past and as qualified as he is, that would become the issue and a distracting one at that. The nomination comes before the Olympics...at least these are my predictions.

This is a very big call for Ronmey. It's possible his election could hinge on his choice. Historically the VP does not have that much influence in the presidential race. Last time, with McCain and Palin it did.

I have supreme confidence Mitt Romney will make a good choice. The difficult variable is, there are about 3 good choices. It's all about degrees of separation between the possible VP choices.

There are 10 days to go till the Summer Olympics kick off (July 27 - Aug 12). I could see a VP announcement before the Olympics, but, then all the positive momentum and excitement from that announcement would disappear for 2 weeks.

It will be real interesting to see how the Romney "think tank" decides to make the call on this announcement. I think a lot rides on how it is handled and "who" the VP choice is.

Last edited by Ddawg on Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ddawg wrote:I could see a VP announcement before the Olympics, but, then all the positive momentum and excitement from that announcement would disappear for 2 weeks.

But it would give them relatively positive recency for those two weeks. Right now the most recent thought that would dwell in the subconscious for those two weeks is "Mitt Romney--Bain--lies--felon." They can't let that be the scene where the pause button gets hit. If not a VP nomination, they need something else positive to drive the cycle their way right before the break.